PLYMOUTH NORTH FOOTBALL: Their time has arrived

PLYMOUTH – The momentum building within the Plymouth North football program finally came to a head last season. After grabbing only three wins in 2011 and then again in 2012, the young Blue Eagles that started on varsity as sophomores finally made it through the incubation period and hatched an impressive 8-3 campaign t...

PLYMOUTH – The momentum building within the Plymouth North football program finally came to a head last season. After grabbing only three wins in 2011 and then again in 2012, the young Blue Eagles that started on varsity as sophomores finally made it through the incubation period and hatched an impressive 8-3 campaign that took them one win short of a trip to Gillette Stadium for an appearance in the Division 3 Super Bowl game.

They begin this year’s journey to make it to that state title contest Friday night (7 p.m. kickoff) on the road when they travel to Oliver Ames. North starts with a tough one as the Tigers went just as far as the Eagles did last season, making it to the Division 3 Southwest finals before finally succumbing to Stoughton.

Plymouth North don’t take an easy route with its non-league games this season. After battling OA, the Eagles go to Division 4 Super Bowl finalist Dennis-Yarmouth next Friday night before beginning their opening tour around the Patriot League.

As they transfer from the Atlantic Coast League to the Patriot League this fall, Head Coach Kevin Cobban knows his squad will be in for a battle each time they take the field.

“It’s a good league, with teams that will challenge us,” Cobban said. “There are a lot of teams that can put points on the scoreboard in this league, so we’ll need to find a way to deal with that. Duxbury and Silver Lake were both playoff teams last season, and we’ve played Whitman-Hanson as a non-league game the last couple of years. Hingham is a good program, and Quincy has some great talent and might turn out to be the best team in the group.”

With a stingy defense and a superior running game at their disposal, the senior leaders on the Blue Eagles believe they have the weapons needed to compete with anyone on their schedule.

“We know that a lot is expected of us after what we were able to do last season. We’ve been motivated by that right from the final game of last season until now,” DB/WR Cory Boudreau said as he and the rest of the team prepared for a scrimmage with B-R last week. “We did a lot of work in the weight room in the off-season to get stronger. We’ve got a tough schedule in front of us, but that kind of a challenge will only make us a better football team down the line.”

There is no real big secret about what North’s offense would like to do this season. It returns a strong veteran line and an elite running back in senior Christian Carr as the Blue Eagles plan to run the football until someone finally finds a way to stop them.

Page 2 of 2 - Senior captain and C/DL Gavin Johnson leads an experienced group along the offensive line that plans to help Carr break the school rushing record for the second year in a row.

“I think we’ve done the work we needed to do in the off-season to get to where we want to be. Everyone has bought into the program, and now we need to transfer all of that hard work in the weight room onto the field on game night,” Johnson said. “We’ve got a good system in place for us to move on to the next level of play.

“We have everything we need to make that big leap this season.”

One of the keys to making that leap is consistency along the offensive line. Johnson is back to anchor things at center, and beside him once again are juniors Justin Cabral and Brian Proctor, as well as senior Jack Gallagher, who is returning after an injury wiped out his junior season. Stepping in this season are junior Nick Mammone as well as TE’s Bobby Dee and Mike Alberghini.

That group will be opening holes along the line again this season for Carr, who is projected to be one of the top running backs around after rushing for 1,765 yards and finding the end zone 19 different times as a junior.

“We want to get to where we did last season and then more. We’ve come together so much as a team over the last three years,” Carr said. “The line did an amazing job for me last season. They open all the holes and give me some room to work with. They are the real stars. I’m the guy who gets to run through the holes they provide.”

Email the reporter at dwolcott@wickedlocal.com and follow him on Twitter, @DavidWolcott1.